General Plan needs review

There's a tendency for the winning side to attach great historical meaning to its conquest and for the losing side to pooh-pooh the outcome as a harmless setback.

The Record

There's a tendency for the winning side to attach great historical meaning to its conquest and for the losing side to pooh-pooh the outcome as a harmless setback.

So it was with Tuesday's decision by the developers of a proposed subdivision in northeast Stockton to drop their appeal of a denial by the city's Planning Commission just hours before the City Council was to take up the manner.

The slow-growthers did a victory dance equipped with a catchphrase: "It's a new day for Stockton."

The Bear Creek East developers' attorney viewed it as a speed bump and all but promised to be back in a year or so, when hopefully the economy has improved.

In reality, this was a prudent move by the developers because the City Council likely was going to turn down the proposal. The timing isn't right.

The best outcome happened, regardless who pulled the strings - or takes the credit.

Stockton is far from out of the economic sluggishness that has dominated the past half-decade-plus, and this is no time to put up a 2,100-home development on the outskirts of town.

"We felt, 'Let's wait 18 to 24 months,' " said Michael Hakeem, attorney for the developers. "The economy is not coming back until then, anyway. I subscribe to the theory that you can back up without backing down."

Good sound bite. However, that's a statement that wouldn't have been made with a different Planning Commission and council makeup. It would have been slam-dunk, fire up the back hoes.

What happened Tuesday, however, shouldn't be viewed as the dawn of a new development era in Stockton. We're hopeful that commissions and councils will make prudent decisions based on the merits of proposals. That will mean some approvals, some denials.

It's possible, perhaps after some successful downtown developments (we hope) in coming years, that a Bear Creek East or similar project will make sense in the overall context of development.

"I think the message is we have a much younger City Council and the individuals are not enthralled by local development interests," said Eric Parfrey of the slow-growth Campaign for Common Ground. "Back in the day, we had developers who had too much interest at City Hall."

Not so fast. A bevy of City Council seats are up for grabs this election cycle and it would be prudent to see who the candidates get campaign contributions from before declaring an end to developer influence.

We'd hope that instead of signaling a "new day" or "putting up a stop sign" - as the extremes would like you to think - the Planning Commission and City Council members were just being plain smart in dealing with a single proposal.

"It wasn't as significant to us as perhaps it was to some of the parties," said Kurt Wilson, Stockton's new city manager. "But they were in the unusual position of this being the first development submitted to our new reality. We will give each matter before us careful consideration."

Bear Creek East is mothballed for now. That should leave plenty of time to delve into what's really important - the General Plan.